Is it high time we changed the way we deal with addictive drugs? Photo: istock.com/kunertus.
‘The cost of this war is too much. There must be a better way.’
Is it high time we changed the way we deal with addictive drugs? Barney Rosedale and Bill Yates find inspiration in Portugal’s policy of decriminalisation.
Mind-altering substances have been used by humans for thousands of years. They meet a variety of needs: reducing physical, mental or social pain; relaxation; stimulation; and inspiration. Some are legal, some are not. And some are taken because of addiction.
These drugs exist all over the world. Illicit opiates are produced in the ‘Golden Crescent’ of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, and in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Cocaine and most cannabis comes from Latin America. Synthetic and designer drugs are produced in secret laboratories everywhere. But in most countries drugs like these are prohibited.
In the US, prohibition was once extended to alcohol. The policy lasted thirteen years, and failed. By making the supply of alcohol illegal, its production and distribution was put into the control of criminal gangs. In this period, backstreet warfare raged in Chicago and other cities. Corruption was rife. Intimidation made it impossible to get witnesses into court. When the most famous gangster, Al Capone, was finally convicted, it was for tax evasion rather than violence or alcohol supply. Thousands of Americans died from drinking industrial alcohol, not intended for human consumption, which had been deliberately poisoned by the federal authorities. The political system was brought into disrepute by politicians who continued to drink. And the loss of tax revenues from alcohol sales was huge. In 1920 Democrats and Republicans both had majorities favouring Prohibition, but by 1933 Franklin D Roosevelt was elected president on the back of a campaign in which he vowed to end the policy.
Nearly forty years later, a ‘war on drugs’ was declared by Richard Nixon. Almost half a century further on it has claimed countless thousands of lives. One of Richard Nixon’s chief White House aides, John D Ehrlichman, would later explain the thinking behind the policy: ‘You want to know what this was really all about?… [Nixon] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people… We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.’
Around the world
This policy engages dozens of countries in criminal violence. In Mexico in the past decade drug violence has killed over 200,000 people. Although civil war in Colombia has ended, violence continues between armed traffickers and corrupt officials. Mexico, Colombia and Afghanistan are also big producers of illegal cannabis, as are Nigeria, Jamaica and Paraguay. Wholesale intimidation and corruption are reducing some transit countries to failed states. Profits from drugs help fund armed groups in many conflicts, from ‘the troubles’ in Ireland to today’s Afghanistan. The violent death count includes extrajudicial killings in Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and more than 12,000 in the Philippines.
But perhaps the biggest impact of the ‘war on drugs’ is the death toll on users. These result from the absence of regulatory protection. These include deaths from: overdoses; the exacerbation of psychiatric illness; use of infected needles; and the poisonous additives used in the processing of synthetic drugs.
The gains from all this go to criminals. Drugs are a very profitable business. In 2003, the global production value of illegal drugs was estimated at $13 billion. The final retail value was estimated at $322 billion. The cost of this war is too much. There must be a better way.
In the UK
In Britain, because tobacco and alcohol are legal, regulation and effective education can be put to work. Consider the remarkable change in social habits since the ban on public smoking. Alcohol and tobacco are both – to different but significant degrees – addictive, and they are far more lethal than most illegal drugs. Tobacco-related disease still kills almost 80,000 people a year in the UK, and alcohol kills 7,300. We must regard action on both of them as ‘work in progress’. But perhaps we can also learn some lessons to apply to currently illegal drugs. We can also learn from the experience of countries that are well ahead of us in reforming their drugs laws. Uruguay, Portugal, Switzerland, Canada and, just recently, New Zealand, have begun to rethink their drugs strategy. Perhaps we can also begin, through the UN, to take the drugs supply chain out of criminal hands.
Drug-related crime is a serious and urgent issue in Britain. Over the past year we have seen a surge in knife murders, often the result of turf wars between rival drugs gangs. We have learned a new term – ‘county lines’ – which describes an illegal drugs supply system. We have also heard authoritative statements from retired chief constables and elected police and crime commissioners calling for drugs policy reform.
Drug-related trials are also a burden on an over-stretched judiciary. A number of our prisons are becoming ungovernable because of drugs – our entire criminal justice system is burdened by our dysfunctional drugs policy. It is time to consider moving drugs as an issue from the justice system to the health system.
One of the main duties of government is to protect the public. In turn, we accept its regulation – applied with varying degrees of competence and success – of a wide area of our lives. Regulation can stretch from the fire risks of mattresses and tower blocks, to vehicles and how they are driven, to our food and our pharmaceutical drugs. If we were to abandon the idea of a drug-free world, legalise these drugs, and control them by detailed legal regulation, we could take the production and supply out of the hands of criminals and into the control of medical staff.
Time for change
Serious drugs would be medically prescribed. Addicts could be registered and provided with safe drugs and needles, supervised by trained staff. Advice could be given on toxicity and reduction. Other drugs would be available as pharmacy sales, with restricted amounts, age restrictions, consistent dosage and full information – but no advertising or branding. Licenced premises, or membership clubs, could supply drugs like cannabis with all the above restrictions. The strength of these drugs could be made consistent, and consumption reserved to specific premises. Some drugs might be available as licenced sales just as we now buy tobacco or alcohol. All drugs would be taxed, and this – together with reduced costs to police, courts, hospitals and prisons – would, from the experience of places like Portugal, Switzerland and some US states, more than pay for the transition to legal regulation and its enforcement.
So why do we persist with the ‘war on drugs’? Public opinion, encouraged by particular newspapers, makes politicians believe that reform is a soft option. We need to make it clear to our representatives that we want a more humane and sensible approach to this problem. It’s time for a new approach.
